No, YOU'RE spamming ME.

OK.  For real, I'm back this time.  I came back from my work trip and things were mental with my timelines and extra commitments but I just submitted the thing that's been consuming me for the past three weeks and I'm free for the time being.

It has been a SLOG.  Travelling for work involved grueling days - up at 6am, in meetings all day from 8am to 5pm, then packing up, going to the airport, hopping on our tiny charter plane and then going to the next destination, checking into the hotel around 8pm.  I didn't really get the hang of how to travel with this group until mid-week, at which point, after consecutive nights of indigestion from eating dinner at 9pm, I came up with a quasi-solution that involved wolfing down my lunch in 15 minutes, then going for a walk so that I might grab something I could eat on the plane and then have a reasonable digestion window before going to bed.  Travelling with my clients meant that I had to be on all day, every day, and even though my threshold for being "on" is high - I am, after all, master of the inane questions-based small talk - being in anonymous hotel rooms without the benefit or "your" stuff or "your" people wears on you.

I did get to do some fun things.  Like:

Win $20 at blackjack at the casino in Windsor.  UGH! Gambling is so FUN!  Why is it so fun?!?  My heart was racing and I had to make a decided effort not to spend my whole night there. 

  Marvel at how Robo-Cop-y Detroit looked across the river.

Order $20 worth of Johnny Rockets and eat it in my bed in my pajamas uninterrupted.

I wanted to try this restaurant called the Hoito in Thunder Bay - it's the oldest restaurant in Thunder Bay and sells Finnish pancakes.  My colleague told me to "just call an Uber," there were "so many" when he was in "Tiny Tom," Ontario (in retrospect, totally a made up, place!)  so I woke up at 6am, got ready, and opened the Uber app on my phone.  Radio silence.  I called a cab and misunderstood the distance AND cab rates in Northern Ontario.  I ended up paying $30 EACH WAY for this $10 breakfast.  It was good, but not $70 good.  I was a proper city-girl n00b and I deserved the taxi fare pwnage I received.

Northern Ontario is a mess.  After sitting through a bunch of deputations, I totally get why everyone hates Toronto and the Greater Golden Horseshoe.  The discrepancies between infrastructure funding up there versus down here are appalling.  First Nations communities who are the potato in the hot potato game between the various levels of government, high unemployment, high addiction and homelessness issues, sectors with razor thin margins that are being pushed beyond the limit.  I felt for these companies and industries, who are trying to create jobs, being squeezed by pressures from well-intentioned labour and environmental policies.  It's really a conundrum - there are no easy answers at all.  But I do think it's important to at least attempt to view things through a rural/Northern lens when we're developing public policy.  In the same way that I think it's important for urban advocates to understand and journey to the outer reaches of our city (and don't give me the whole, "I don't travel north of Bloor" parsimony) before they go ahead and propose policies that work against people who can't bike to work and don't want to.  This myopic tendency is a thing, and it's a thing that we have to work against, in order to build and nurture the relationships that are going to create the impetus for change.

After my eye-opening week abroad (I also got into green smoothies while I was away - so for real: travel does change you), I came back to work and have just been in head-down, beast mode trying to summarize over 300 oral and written submissions and then turn that into a draft report, after two days of local hearings.  It's been a sedentary marathon.  My butt's been glued to my desk chair and my muscles have definitely atrophied, but my deadline is insane and this is just what you gotta do to facilitate the democratic process, 'naw mean?

In the midst of all this I was contending with that fundraiser family dance I'm organizing (done this past weekend - YES!), and my parent council commitments, and dealing with static from weirdoes in the service of my parent council commitments.  Like, people are cray.  There's no way around it.  I'm the "volunteer coordinator" which means that I signed up for this new role and got no direction.  Fine, I can deal with that.  I set up this spreadsheet and aggregated volunteer names but the list isn't robust because at the Big Yam's school, parents in charge of certain activities are very proprietary about "their" lists of volunteers.  Which is weird, but okay, I can deal with that, too, I guess?

Anyway, someone wanted me to send out an email to ask for volunteers.  I do, with a nice italicized message underneath my name saying that if you don't want to be on the list, just email me.  This broad emails me and tells me she never asked to be on the list and that according to Canada's new anti-spam legislation I can't email people who haven't asked to be emailed, blah blah blah and then she links the Anti-Spam FAQ in the email. Da fuuuuuuuuq?!?  I research for a living, you b!  Don't test me!  So I fire back an email and say, no problem, I'll remove you from the list, sorry for the inconvenience,  I don't think that calling for volunteers constitutes the "commercial activity" the legislation is referencing.  Warm regards, me. Then she WRITES BACK.  BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE CRAY (remember how I told you that?  Still true.)  "Regardless of what the legislation says I still don't want to be on the list."  Oooookay.  I didn't respond to that email (BECAUSE I'M NOT A PSYCHO).  THEN!  Four days later, she emails me AGAIN!  She forwards me this thing and says, "I checked and you're right, requests for volunteers aren't considered spam. I still don't think anyone should be on this email list unless they requested it." (Italics mine).  At this point, I'm like, YOU'RE spamming ME!  Why can't you just shut up?!  Why do you care about having the last word with the volunteer coordinator for our kids' school?  Are you seriously so inept that you don't know how to ignore and/or delete the one email a month (at most) you're getting from me?!?!  I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS BULL!

I just can't.

Leftover picture from when we went to Lolly's farm over the holidays.

Sick Twin B

Throughout this time I've gone through my usual whirlwind of micro-obsessions.  I have many many thoughts on Beyoncé's Formation video.  The Big Yam has started saying, "Excuse-me moi" to preface his points and it is amazing.

So we watched the movie Dope on the weekend, which is a fun, awesome movie that speaks to everything I'm into.  I'm super into teen caper movies (teen comes into ill begotten gains, uses it to their own advantage to shine on some adults, hilarity/wisecracking ensues) which I'm convinced is a genre, but when pressed by the Dotytron, I couldn't think of any other examples (The Secret of My Success)?  I'm almost positive this is a thing.  I'm totally obsessed with all the style in the film, but particularly, Diggy's (the girl on the right, above).  Her outfits were amazing and if I were 20 years younger, I would totally go for it.  The costume designer went for an overtly 90s aesthetic, so if I were 20 years younger, I would have been period-appropriate, though I don't think I had the style sense or body confidence to put things together with half as much panache.  The movie is like Attack the Block - teens, of a very particular type (in this case, geeks, in Attack the Block they were chavs), get in over their heads and meet some characters as they hustle.  I loved it.

THIS. BOOK. OBSESSED.  Remember Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl?  In that book, the protagonist wrote fanfic (that was peppered throughout the novel) about these two characters, Simon (a mage) and Baz (a vampire and mage), who were from this Harry Potter-like series written by a fictional author in the Fangirl world.  Well, Rainbow Rowell, being the amazing creature that she is, took those characters and wrote a book about them, in her own voice, and it was SO FREAKIN' GOOD.  I squee'd my way through the whole thing, savouring pages with gay romance and kissing and quips, and then as soon as I finished it, picked it up and read it right through again.  A book that should have taken me 2 nights to read, I stretched over a week (twice!) because I loved it so.  The characters were fully-realized and the dynamic between Simon and Baz is the perfect antagonistic stuff of teen-beat dreams.  It's like Buffy and Spike, Riggins and Layla, Veronica Mars and Logan Echolls.  There's a strong female friend, Penelope, who is even better than Hermione because she's got more of a sense of humour and is more overtly misanthropic.  People have dismissed the world of Carry On as Harry Potter fanfic, but I disagree.  It's its own thing, which is what makes it so addictive.  The story is self-contained and the narrative is compelling - it falls a part a bit near the end - I'm not clear on what we're supposed to think of the principle villain, but notwithstanding my love of British magician boarding school tales (and make no mistake: Rowell knows what makes for good British magician boarding school tales [read: she includes a lot of food descriptions]), I would have read a single volume for each year of Simon Snow at Watford (their Hogwart's).  The modern world is acknowledged (they have cell phones), and all in all, the romance was delightful and the supporting characters are fantastic and feel real.

I've read a few gay romances and they never did anything for me, and I was beginning to worry that I was too heteronormative to handle it, but based on the HOURS I spent looking up Simon and Baz fan art and additional fanfic, I can report that I was just waiting for the right story and the right characters and Rainbow Rowell served them up to me on a platter.  I can't recommend this enough.  One of my top books of 2015/16 (it was released in 2015) for sure.

Dead. Seriously. So hot.

I can't even.  Thank you, teenage girls everywhere for pouring all your frothing, hormonal, tentative sexual energies into making Simon and Baz fanart/fanfic.  You are treasures, the lot of you.  

I went from reading that (twice!) to tackling Jonathan Franzen's Purity (for academic book club, obviously) and seriously?  Like, what is this?  Is this white privilege in book form?  Because that's how it feels to me.  I can't even (in the bad way).  Now I'm at the 20% mark and am somewhat committed to seeing it through.  UGH.

After a long week and a weekend that felt even longer, I warmed up a coconut bun and put it on the dining room table.  I went to supervise the Big Yam practicing piano for about 1 minute, and when I came back to retrieve my treat, I saw that Twin A had stuffed the ENTIRE thing into his mouth.  He looked up at me, and through a mouth full of ill begotten gains, said, "I ate it all."  This is kind of what it sounded like, but his cute, soft voice was even cuter muffled through a coconut bun filter.

Here's what we've been eating for dinner, lately:

Bi bim bap.  I bought the thinly sliced ribeye that's in the freezer section of Chinese grocery stores (for hot pot) and mixed it with purchased kalbi marinade, stir fried it, and then added thinly sliced carrots, mushrooms, and snowpeas with a touch more marinade and piled this on top of rice.  Topped with a fried egg and sesame seeds, this was a very budget-friendly weeknight dinner (total cost was about $20!)

More budget weeknight dinners - French onion soup and croque hermaphrodites (ham and swiss with a fried egg on top)

Sunday supper a few weeks ago was meatloaf - sauteed brussels sprouts (which Twin B strangely loves), and a sweet potato-cauliflower-yukon gold mash.  Things my kids hate: mashed potatoes.  I don't get it.  

Another budget weeknight meal - sausage and peppers (sear Italian sausages, then bake on a tray with sliced peppers, onions, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with oregano and chili flakes) served up with soft mascarpone polenta (done in the slow cooker), and sauteed rapini.  My kids hated this meal, but I loved it.

Lately I've been craving retro 90s, 2000s desserts like creme brulee and molten chocolate cakes.  I don't know why molten chocolate cakes fell out of favour, but there's really no reason why?  Who doesn't like an underbaked, warm, gooey brownie topped with ice cream and salted caramel sauce?  Clearly not me, judging by my nightly consumption of one such dessert.

Budget weeknight dinners: Hawaii edition.  Steamed rice, topped with fried spam, a fried egg, with canned gravy on top = moco loco.  Hawaiian people are geniuses.

I was all inspired by my Discerning Coyote friend so I pulled my 9 year old (!) sourdough starter out of the freezer where it's been for 3 years (!) and brought it back to life.  I made two ugly loaves that tasted pretty good, all things considered (all things being: I was rushed, I subbed wheat bran for wheat germ, my starter is sluggish, I didn't have a razor blade to cut the tops, and I was rushing like whoa).

Yesterday was pancake Tuesday, so we had Swedish pancakes with lingonberry preserves and maple syrup and bacon from the Mennonites, which is the very best bacon in the world.

Fin.

Coping...

or not?  If you were to draw my outline these days, I'd look like a sawtooth blade.  I don't have a lot of patience to smooth over the rough edges brought on by the following: lack of sleep, too many kids, too many chores, a boob that's been sucked raw (literally!), and a sore throat.  

Last week was a blur.  This one is much the same.  I know that somewhere in there, we celebrated Chinese New Year with my family (I'm Chinese, so I get to call it Chinese New Year, okay?) and it was wonderful spending the day with my sister and her family, even if it did result in my CHILDLESS brother, Bruce Wayne, piping up in the most patronizing way when we were discussing how I don't let the Big Yam watch the rebooted My Little Pony cartoon, "See, my concern is that he's going to grow up without knowing these cultural references and be outcast because of it."  REALLY, CHILDLESS YOUNGER BROTHER?  THAT'S your concern?!?  For serious?!  Granted, he's an idiot.  But it's galling, the way it's always galling when people who don't have kids and lack the imagination/creativity to even empathize with people who are in a different situation from themselves, weigh in.  The Big Yam is a scared little butt!  He's just like that!  I didn't make him that way because I didn't let him watch Saw 1-10!!!  Geez.  

The Dotytron had the pleasure of taking the Big Yam to his dance class on Saturday and brought home video.  Guys, it is AMAZING.  Nothing will prepare you for how awesome it is to watch your little kid in a class full of tuu-tuu'd and tricked out girls, all of whom are at least 8 months to a year old than he is, trying to learn a hip hop routine and getting lost in a shoulder-shrug reverie and missing the next count.  NOTHING.  Apparently the Dotytron overheard some boys who had younger sisters in the class make a comment from outside - something along the lines of: "There's a BOY in that class!" and if the kids' dad hadn't piped in, I think the Dotytron would have gone postal.  I'm not usually the kind of parent who defends their kid.  I'm the kind who is way harder on my own kid than anyone else.  But picking on the Big Yam for dancing?  I WILL CUT YOU.  We had SMckay over for a sleepover and hang on Saturday night and we decided that we're going to make the Big Yam a "Dance like there's nobody watching" t-shirt to wear to dance class.  SO GOOD!  LOL!

I think one of the things contributing to my funk is that I don't have a lot of non-parenting/domestic input going into my head right now.  I'm reading a meh book (Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings), don't have a good show I can marathon currently, and no time to catch up on movies.  I'm out of the loop in terms of the news cycle generally, and no time to do the things I love - like knit and sew and create things with my hands.  

But I don't want to do to whingy posts in a row.  I promise you I will write wonderful book and movie reviews shortly.  Yesterday Momma D came and helped me out and guys, it was HEAVENLY.  She took care of dinner!  She brought lunch!  She helped wrangle the babies while I went to a doctor's appointment!  She hung out and helped fold laundry!  She did dishes!  Thanks to her I was able to mop the kitchen floor!  

It made all the difference in the world.  I was able to hang out with my babies and enjoy them.  There is much to enjoy.  Lindsay Lou-Lou is all about giving you the biggest, widest, scrunchy-faced, open-mouthed grin lately, one that shows off his bottom gums.  It's so cute.  The Quincess is all about sticking his fingers in my mouth and making his weird noises.  I know the Big Yam hasn't been getting much love photo-wise lately, maybe be cause he is such a ball of activity that it's hard to catch him standing still, but I can't say enough how wonderful he is.  He is a treat.  A sweet, fun, funny, little guy who wants to do everything by himself, and yet is still young enough to insist on morning cuddles with me.  He is all about framing his requests in the negative: "Mama?  It's a school night tonight.  I can't have iPad."  and I think the idea is that he frames what he can't have, to manage his expectations, on the off-chance that we bend the rules.  It's so funny and endearing.  So is calling "yellow" "lallo."  I never want "lallo" to go away.

Look at that sweet little expression!  What a sweet elf with devil eyebrows!

 I can never resist a good finger gun picture.

Simple meals lately:

Bratwurst, a cheddar-broccoli brown rice casserole with garlic panko topping, and roasted Brussels sprouts

Freezer Greek spinach-lemon soup, a tartine of garlic butter, fresh mozzarella, and roasted grape tomatoes, and a salad of romaine, caramelized pear, and toasted pecans.

I was supposed to have my friends R & M come over today, but the snow curtailed cross-city travel, so I had my street ladies who are also on maternity leave over instead.  I made a bacon, fig, and brie quiche, and these blueberry muffins.  I can't resist a warm blueberry muffin soaked in salted butter.  I will post the muffin recipe tomorrow.

Fin.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

My sister and Uncle Rico and her kids were in town this weekend because it was the annual fundraising gala my mum's fundraising organization throws in support of the hospital she raises funds for.  We don't usually go to the gala - maybe once every other year, because it's just too crazy and kind of stressful and the Dotytron hates being hungover now and (according to him) there's no point going if you can't get properly crunked.

Anyway, we usually meet up with everyone for lunch the next day, so I made us reservations at this new (to us) dim sum place, called Dragon Boat Fusion, in Markham.  By my count, I estimated that there were going to be 15 people there (including the babies), which is an unwieldy number for any restaurant.  Trying to just go out impromptu no longer works with my family.  We're just too darned big.

This is what happens when we go out for food.  I do the organizing, I do the ordering, and Bruce Wayne heckles me and the Dotytron usually jumps in and starts chirping me too, because he wants the cold shoulder later on, or something, I'm not sure what his motivations are.  

This is how things unfolded: we show up at the restaurant, it's PACKED because they do the early bird cheap dim sum thing.  We're not getting cheap dim sum, because our reservation is at 11am, when it ends (a fact my mum made a point of, even though, need I remind you again: I'M THE ONE WHO DID THE ORGANIZING, and it would be nigh on IMPOSSIBLE to get everyone there before 11am, considering some of the gang were out carousing until 3am, drinking, and slept downtown at a hotel).  I place an order, the food sloooooowly starts to trickle in.  Bruce Wayne starts giving me the gears about not having ordered enough food.  My mum (who can't hear very well) is also asking me a million questions at my elbow, about what was ordered.  The Dotytron starts giving me the gears and joining in.  I'm starting to feel stressed out, so I place a secondary order for more food.  Uncle Rico is looking extremely tired and worn.  Little Ze, is sitting there, green around the gills, with his head on the table.  "What's wrong with Little Ze?"  My sister says, "He says he's not feeling well."  

The second order is placed, Little Ze says he feels sick.  Then he says he's going to throw up and coughs up a bit of braf.  Then everyone starts shouting a million different things, I'm rooting through my diaper bag for a bag, Little Ze brafs onto a plate, and Uncle Rico's HANDS, and I finally get a bag and we dump the braf into that and he brafs some more.  Dotytron is shouting that we have to get Little Ze to the bathroom, I'm shouting back that we shouldn't move him.  Amidst all the chaos and me trying to find more bags in my diaper bag, my mum is shoving a jacket (which I thought was Little Ze's) into my hands and telling me to wipe the braf off of it.  I'm like, "I'll just stick it in a bag and we can clean it when we get home," and she hisses at me, "IT'S LEATHER!!!" and then I realize that - OF COURSE! - my mum is concerned about her own leather jacket.  LOL!  

Uncle Rico isn't eating, so we decide he should just take Little Ze home and we'll figure out how to get the rest of my sis' family back to my mum's house.  They leave.  Then the food starts coming. And coming. And coming.  At this point, some of the steamer baskets are stacked like, 5 deep.  It is INSANE.  And of course, my family being my family, we had enough food with the first round of ordering!!!  So, now I'm stressed because I'm feeling guilty about all the food we have to now deal with.  Meanwhile, we get a text from Uncle Rico that in true my sister fashion, she didn't give him the keys to my mum's house, and Big D isn't home, so they're stuck outside.  The funniest part is that when all the food is stacked on the table at it's highest, and we still  have 5 dishes to come, one of the servers comes cruising around with a plate of like, braised duck wings, and is like, "Can I interest you in this?" and all 13 of us, turn to her in unison and shout, "Noooooooooooooooo!" 

To top it off, the Dotytron, on the car ride home, gives me this talk about how, "Maybe, the next time we go to dim sum, and I don't mean this in any way to be an attack on you, and I don't want you to take it personally, we should eat the first round first and THEN order more."  AND THEN I TOOK IT HELLA PERSONALLY.  And started losing my s**t, because he was CHIRPING AT ME the same as Bruce Wayne, the ENTIRE TIME at the restaurant that I hadn't ordered enough.  And he's telling me NOT TO TAKE IT PERSONALLY?!?  This is the guy who has NEVER organized anything for our family, and the one time he did (this disastrous attempt that we call the "Huntsville Death March" - where we basically tried to - unsuccessfully - take a group of 13 people to lunch in Huntsville on a whim, coming home from the cottage), he basically almost broke down in tears.  THAT'S RICH, DOTYTRON.  REALLY RICH.  

It was hilarious.  It was epic.  It was ridiculous.  It was a series of unfortunate events.  And it basically sums up my family to a T.

Fin.

You'll have to excuse me...

I'm not at my best.

So, it turns out the Big Yam gave me the hand, foot, and mouth disease.  NOT to be confused with foot and mouth disease, which is what cows and other cloven-hoofed animals get (so like, goats and horses and Tim Curry in Legend).  This has been a lesson in poor parenting.  Last week the Big Yam was waking up crying in the middle of the night so we brought him into our bed for a bunch of what we call "Sleep Away Camp" and I was kind of stressing because I thought he was just getting into the habit of it and didn't want to sleep in his own bed.  THEN he got this weird speckly rash on his butt.  THEN he had pretty bad cold symptoms (cough and runny nose) and he probably had a fever but we didn't check because we're the worst.  THEN he complained about having a "boo boo mouth" but I totally told him he was faking.

BEST MAMA EVER.  LOL!  So the worst.  On Friday, when I discovered I had FIVE cankers in my mouth, I naturally assumed that I had mouth cancer and hypochondriac me was already tearing up thinking of the Dotytron raising the Big Yam alone and how I was going to control their lives from heaven or hell.  Then I realized I'd had a stressful week (I had a job interview on Tuesday for a job I REALLY REALLY REALLY want but so does like, everyone in Canada and will most likely not get, meaning this will be my 3rd consecutive failed job interview) so that was probably it, but I was still like, that's kind cray because I usually handle stress well.  I also started getting weird blisters on my feet so I was like, "I should stop wearing stockings and kicks."  Anyway, I dragged Dr. Rei EVERYWHERE on Friday during lunch looking for Listerine to gargle with which burned the hell out of my mouth and gave me temporary relief.

Then on Friday night we had S & P over for dinner and suddenly I got these pin-prick blisters on the palms of my hands and more blisters on my feet so I started freaking out.  I went to the walk-in clinic that my doctor's office holds for patients (by the way: super hooray for the Family Health Team model, province of Ontario!) and the doctor was like, 100% hand foot and mouth.  By the way, at this point, my tongue is like 30% ulcerated and I'm in constant pain and talk like I'm brushing my teeth all the time.  The good news is: the virus clears up by itself in about a week.  The bad news is: there's not a lot they can give you for the fact that your mouth is on fire.  She told me about this juju Doctor's Book of Home Remedies bulls**t that consists of rinsing your mouth with equal parts Benadryl and milk of magnesia but that barely works.

In summary, my kid had hand, foot, and mouth and we did the following:

a) ignored him
b) told him he was faking
c) stressed about how we were going to "wean" him off of his only source of comfort (Sleep Away Camp)
d) sent him to daycare

BEST!  Apparently only kids and babies get this virus but occasionally it makes the jump to immune compromised adult humans (so in addition to not getting the job, the stress from the interview gave me s**t mouth, great).

I spent the weekend starting The Vampire Diaries which is pretty bad but also good because it features the signature teenaged Karl-Lagerfeld plot bait that is "the-bad-guy-who-falls-in-love-with-the-heroine-and-is-somewhat-but-not-fully-reformed-of-his-sexy-brooding-misunderstood-badness" (see: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars, EVERY HARLEQUIN ROMANCE EVER).

Then on Sunday we went to Canadian Tire to pick up Christmas lights for the front of Lil' Ugmo and I basically had a melt down and LEFT before paying to sit in the car in fulminating, sullen, tear-filled silence while the Dotytron paid for the purchases with the Big Yam.  Here is the context: EVERY YEAR the Dotytron complains about how we don't have a plan for our lights and how he doesn't like them.  Every year, I've put them up.  So this year I was like, let's do it up proper.  We go, and the Dotytron did this thing that he does where he gets all weird and super-unhappy about shopping for anything that's not a pick-up for his Tele or like, vintage records, and was all abdicating responsibility for the decision-making and I got super-frustrated and then gave up and had a meltdown which resulted in: leaving the Big Yam and the Dotytron in line to pay for our purchases to sit in stony silence in the car, followed by tears and lots of f-bombs at the house.  IT WAS CLASSIC HOLIDAY SEASON ME.  BUT ALSO CLASSIC HOLIDAY SEASON DOTYTRON.  Because I'm the one dealing with both families and making sure that people get presents and making sure that things get made for his family's various holiday potlucks and also getting stuff for the Big Yam and making sure that he gets a special holiday.  So yeah.  All the equality stuff I was rhapsodizing about in the previous post goes out the windows during the holidays through a combination of: being a psycho, lack of delegating, lack of communication, and internalized martyrdom.  Anyway, in order to mitigate that stuff I'm going to put him in charge of contributing something for the Doty family Christmas.  And otherwise delegate stuff out so that I'm not the only one responsible for the MAGIC OF THE HOLIDAYS.  I hate myself for even talking about that right now.

Related: I find it weird when grown adults get amped about presents.  I just can't wrap my head around it.  It's so not me.  I'm of the school where if you want something, you go out and get it your own damn self.  I guess there is the case to be made for stuff that you want but will never get for yourself?  But I dunno...all the things I want, I'll get.  The notable exception being: one of these head massager thingies

which totally feel amazing and that I totally want but can never justify getting for some reason.  Although last Friday while I was dragging Dr. Rei around everywhere, she was like, "It's $5. TREAT YO' SELF."  So I did.  See how simple that process was?  I get that it's one thing when someone sees something in some Moroccan bazaar that is PERFECT for that other person and that other person is never going to be there to get it themselves and so they buy it as a present.  I totally get that.  Or when it's motivated by you seeing something thoughtful and going and grabbing it in the moment.  I just don't like the whole, birthday and Xmas need to produce manufactured pressure.  I just took a look at my own list of "stuff I want" and yup, I plan on getting all that stuff someday.  I'm trying to think of what I would want someone to secretly surprise me with and I can't think of a single g-d thing.  What can I say, I'm a self-reliant, endlessly practical person.  

I served P & S this gorgeous pork & poblano stew from the slow cooker - we destroyed it.  I served it with salsas, corn chips, and shredded cabbage.  There was supposed to be avocado too, but stupid Chinatown bargain basement avocadoes were mad bargain basement.  

For dessert: coconut tres leches.

Saturday night's dinner was similarly divine (though it doesn't look like much). Turkey tetrazzini - turkey and egg noodles and mushrooms with leftover gravy-jumped bechamel and leftover brussels sprouts folded in, baked with a crispy panko topping.  Casserole love!  

Served with bacon roasted carrots and parsnips.

Last night's dinner was inspired by April Bloomfield's cookbook, A Girl and Her Pig.  I made us ribeye with chimichurri, roasted broccoli with lemon & garlic, duck fat roasted potatoes (!!!!!) and sautéed mushrooms.

Tonight I get to dine with SMckay!

Fin.

I'm trying very hard

...to give Veteran's their day, before EXPLODING about how the stress from holidays with my family makes me implode but ARGH, ARGH, A THOUSAND TIMES, ARGH!!!

This year, the Dotytron and I decided that in lieu of buying people the stuff off their "list" (and keep in mind, my family sibling Secret Santa has a limit of SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS, plus what we buy for the parents, grandparents, and nieces, and nephews, and not including what we get for the Dotytron's side of the family), that we would put that money towards sponsoring a less fortunate family.  Any extra money would be donated to Applegrove Community Complex, which hosts a drop-in centre that the Big Yam frequents with his daycare provider and offers lots of great services to new immigrants, etc.  We're still going to buy presents for the little kids because I'm not so monstrous as to believe that Xmas isn't about children.

This accomplishes a few things:  1) it underscores the truly fun part about the holidays, which is really about eating cookies with your family and loved ones and seeing them and spending quality time together; 2) making us mindful of the rampant consumerism of our lives; 3) reducing the amount of misguided gifts that we often end up giving away.  Let's be real: anything that I really really really want costs hundreds of dollars.  I don't expect anyone to get that for me.  I actually feel icky about the need to have a pile of presents on Xmas morning.  It's weird and random to me.  

Anyway, of course (of course!) my family is balking.  Notably, my mum is balking.  And somehow, in all of this, I'M GETTING TURNED INTO THE BAD GUY.  Which is the most laughable part of the whole run down.  Like I'm "ruining" the holidays.  I'm not saying, don't do the family Secret Santa.  I'm just saying, I'm not going to participate.  It would be one thing if my family were also the sort to appreciate handmade presents - but they're not.  I've seen jars of jam and barbecue sauce languishing on shelves in my mum's pantry for years and years.  I've seen hand-knitted goods be worn once or twice and then never to be seen again.  All of these things represent hours and hours of my labour, and they're not appreciated.  No, STUFF is appreciated and that's the part that makes me feel icky.  Because there is no more precious thing on this world than TIME and to not appreciate the time that it takes to make or craft something is truly, truly sad.

The other issue here is family autonomy.  As generations grow, individual family units will start to make their own family traditions - separate and distinct from the previous generation's.  That's okay and an important part of growing.  My family didn't HAVE a holiday tradition growing up.  Invariably, we were on a plane on Xmas.  I think Big D bought us presents one year, and that was the year he first joined the family and was being all "cool stepfather trying to win over the brats he inherited" about things.  My mum has never bought us birthday or Xmas presents growing up (I'd say, from the time I was born til about 23).  It just wasn't our thing.  I'm okay with that.  It doesn't phase me.  It just rankles that a new tradition is being presented as set in stone.  Traditions grow and evolve and morph and change based on the people enacting them.  

Anyway, this is my usual customary holiday rant to say: I'm sticking to my guns.  In the same way that I think kids receiving piles of plastic, branded birthday presents is excessive, I'm saying the same about Xmas.  

You know what I really want for Xmas?  BABYSITTING VOUCHERS.  YES, PLEASE!!!  Or, let's go out to dinner.  Or make a time where you buy me lunch or I buy you lunch.  I want to sit and talk and eat good food and drink wine with you.  That's what I want.  I want to be able to have a night out with the Dotytron and not have it cost us double because we have to pay a babysitter.  Give the gift of time and thoughtfulness.  Give the gift of hanging out and building memories.  

I know, I know.  I'm such a pinko Mama Dread.  I can't help it.  It's even harder being a pinko, lefty, Mama Dread born in a family of POLAR OPPOSITES.  But I will keep fighting the good fight!  Water wears away the stone (although the stone might be me).

Sigh.  I promise not to rant about Xmas any more.  This has been freeing actually.  I might still try to bang out some crafty projects, but we'll see how it goes.  

Tomorrow is my day off! I have a pretty big slate of projects on deck.  Namely:

- make a sweet potato pecan pie
- make baked brie lollipops with my home made quick puff pastry
- make two chocolate babka
- make and freeze rugelach (dough is already prepped)
- make fig pinwheel cookies
- make Little Big Cuz's birthday cake
- get a massage
- grocery shop
- work on my advent calendar

:|

We'll see how it all goes down.

Tonight for dinner we had chickpea & kale falafels with pitas with store-bough bought baba ghanouj and tzatiki.  Kale in falafels = amazing.

Fin.

Busy as a motherf**ker in here

I am getting OWNED right now. OWNED! Work is busy, school is busy, life is busy and I'm so OVER Christmas. Actually, revise. I love everything about Christmas except the gifts. I'm over getting gifts, I'm over the pressure to get gifts. I'm definitely over gifts for anyone under the age of 16. I just think it's so ridiculous. Like, what are you going to do? Get me stuff I can buy myself? As a believer in the "Treat. Yo'. Self." school of conspicuous consumption, I don't really need someone to get me rando shiz. I like, REALLY REALLY REALLY don't need someone to get me rando shiz. I just feel like the holidays are stressful for everyone, and we all KNOW it's stressful going out and buying something special and meaningful for people on your list in like, the 2 seconds you have when you're not running from work, to home, to socializing with people in a meaningful way, to being at home and doing meaningful, non-capitalist driven stuff that actually HELPS the world more than more stuff does - so why do we do it? Why do we do it to each other? So not worth it!

I love seeing my house lit up with the kind of kooky, non-Martha Stewart approved light display I cooked up while still recovering from gastroenteritis on Monday (I teetered on a step stool while experiencing the chills) and I love being with family and visiting with friends and I love eating cookies and baking cookies and giving cookies and I love crying through the Peanuts Christmas movie and I love snow and hot chocolate and wearing slippers and soft flannel jammies and the smell of firs and evergreens and the holiday buffet at Hart House which is the closest I've come to eating in the great hall at Hogwart's.. Those are all things I love about the holidays. The gifts? And the shopping? And the endless piles of garbage-making? I can do without.

Next year I'm going to make the Big Yam an advent calendar and I'm going to put like, 1 piece of chocolate in and the rest of the pockets will be filled with activities like "drinking hot chocolate" or "watching a holiday-themed movie" or a book or something. Holiday memories are about being together. The stuff is the least of it. I will make a concession for a stocking. I like stockings. But I'm going to take a page from Little House on the Prairie. You know what Laura and Mary got in their stocking? I'll itemize it for you:

1 tin cup each

1 cookie cake made with white flour

1 penny in the toe of the stocking

That's IT. There might have been a stick of striped peppermint candy, but I'm not sure if that was Little House on the Prairie or Little House in the Big Woods. Either way, it's pretty chill. I came across this grouping of stocking stuffers in my blogroll and I like the categories: something to eat, something to read, something to play with, something to wear. That seems very reasonable and yet still fun.

Things that can take the wind right out of your sails: finding out, 3 weeks after submitting your mid-term exam, that you did the wrong version of the exam, the version of the exam that was longer and had more components, because the prof didn't send out an email about the revised take-home exam available on the course website, and you always leave class mid-way through so you didn't hear the announcement. AI-YI-YI, papi! What the heck? I'm waiting to hear back from the prof on how we're going to fix this little situation.

I have a lit review, a final exam, and a research paper (a baby one) due by December 10th and I'm working my butt off to get everything in by then. Technically, I have until the 16th...but I don't want to be working until the 16th. I want to enjoy my Hart House Holiday buffet lunch on the 15th with an empty belly derived from my clear conscience.

On Monday I made us minestrone with spinach-cheese tortellini:

Yesterday we had tuna noodle casserole with a buttered challah topping:

I really, really, really love me a tuna noodle casserole. It's so comforting, with the Campbell's Cream soup all up in there like it's the 1960s all over again.

Tonight we're having dressed up perogies with caramelized fennel and onions and bacon and roasted broccoli and sautéed kale. With a billion pounds of sour cream, of course.

The Big Yam had his one year check up yesterday and our doctor was loving how he sat so still and quiet while he checked his ear and then of his own volition turned his head so that Dr. S. could check his other ear. He did cry when he got stabbed with 3 needles but it subsided quickly. The little muffin. I love seeing him all bundled up in his bulky winter coat and his weird sock-mitts that I knit for him with his face framed by his aviator cap - there's something about when you frame the Big Yam's face that makes his eyes look extra dark and his little button nose extra-buttony and his chubby cheeks extra chunky wunky and his little pretty-boy mouth extra girly.

Okay - that's it for me for the time being. I've got a book review for you tomorrow.

Fin.

Quickie

Gah! Super-busy lately and yet still feeling kind of blah and uninspired. Don't have any dinner ideas, don't want to do my crafting/sewing projects, feel like the house is a mess, always running around like a chicken with my head cut off AND one of my profs is on my jock about a (4 month) late paper. BOOOO! She gave me a B+ on my first assignment AND inquired about the late paper in an email where she cc'd the prof who's teaching the second part of the course, which I thought was kind of shady - like, I'm up to date so far on term 2, so why you gotta call me out? I feel like it's going to colour his perception of my work. I was all complain-y about the B+ and received no sympathy from the Dotytron, who was like, "there's only so far you can coast and not do any work - considering you didn't do ANY research, you should be happy with the B+" - which I guess is true - but I want to be able to coast, not do any work, and get an A- at least! C'MAAAAAN.

Here's a photo of the Big Yam looking all proprietary and ready to leap out of the exersaucer at the first intruder:

And here's a photo of him and H at the One of a King show. We stayed for 5 hours and had a really good time:

So far, I'm really liking the crowd at the drop-in centre. Yesterday, I had to go pee and hesitantly asked a lady, "what do you do when you have to go to the bathroom?" and she was all like, "just put him down! Ask someone to watch him! I'll watch him!" all shouty-like. It was pretty cute and they're very welcoming there.

Today we're off to meet S for a walkabout around St. Lawrence Market (and hopefully the fancy Joe Fresh at Queen's Quay), then library, home, dinner, and Momma & Poppa D over to put T to sleep and we go play dodgeball. Tomorrow is class all day and then our friend G's birthday get together.

This life. What a slog!

Fin.

finally!

i have my craft room/office (or corner of it) back! hallelujah! this entire process was not without its tears. i basically had a mental breakdown last night around 10:30pm, this AFTER arguing with the dotytron about setting up the shelves at 8:30pm, after he got home late from teaching private lessons.

basically the night went like this: i came home, made dinner (pictured below), ate, waited for him, he came home, ate, i insisted my room be put back together, he resisted, we fought, he did it anyway, he coaxed me upstairs to see it, and then i started rearranging things and stymied by my belly and my mouth-breathing and how much harder it is to do/lift/perform routine tasks lately, broke into sobs on the floor. it was pretty grim. like, this wasn't a ladylike trickle of tears - these were heaving rivulets and gasping and wailing that started off as sentences but devolved into primordial keening.

i feel like i'm under a bit of stress. too many extra projects at work that are being micromanaged by people who subscribe to bizarre rules like "you should have 1 power point slide for every 45 seconds of speech" and who insist on bi weekly teleconferences about the status of the presentation (i'm presenting at this tech fair thing in the fall) and are having the first "dry run" of the presentation SIX WEEKS before the actual tech fair is happening. in addition to the demands of my regular job and the current development opportunities and extra projects i'm already committed to.

then there's the stress of not having a space of my own and getting ready for the fatburger and coordinating showers and cottage trips and prenatal classes and all the rest and it's weighing me down. i have so much trouble LETTING GO and going with the flow and not micromanaging everything in my own life and i'm such a perfectionist that i take things way too personally. i also made the mistake of watching a birth video on youtube which freaked me the heck out. i'm sure not doing THAT again, thank you very much.

anyway, on to happier things. late tonight we're leaving to geneseo to visit with my sister and pick up the crib and crib mattress and dresser and eat naughty western new york things and take my nephew for his birthday special day (which includes eating at moe's - his favorite restaurant - and going to the rochester science centre and museum).

tonight we had a zucchini, corn, chive, and mascarpone whole wheat pasta for dinner:

last night we had sesame soba noodles (recipe below) with garlic shrimp:

and this was tuesday night's dinner, a bacon, leek, corn & cherry tomato sauté with seared wild salmon with scallion mayo:



fin.

----------------------------------------------------

sesame soba noodles with garlic shrimp

serves 2-3

2 "bundles" of soba noodles (the ones i buy come in pre-portioned little bundles)

1 head of broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets

1 orange pepper, small dice

1 cucumber, small dice

3-4 scallions, thinly sliced

3/4 lb of peeled shrimp

4-5 garlic cloves, minced

salt and pepper

spicy sesame garlic sauce

2 T. canola oil

1-3 t. chili flakes

4-5 garlic cloves, finely minced

1/4 c. soy sauce

1 T. sugar

2 T. sesame oil

1 lemon, juiced

- boil water and cook the soba noodles. add the broccoli to the boiling water when the soba are about 1-2 minutes from being done. drain the cooked soba and broccoli and rinse with cold water until cool.

- toss the cold soba and broccoli with the diced pepper, cucumber, and scallions in a large bowl and set aside

make the spicy sesame garlic sauce:

- heat the canola oil with the chili flakes and garlic over low heat, until it starts to sizzle and you can smell the garlic (watch carefully!)

- stir until the garlic is almost golden, then take the pan off the heat and add the soy, the sugar, and sesame oil, stirring to dissolve the sugar

- add the lemon juice, taste for seasoning, and toss this sauce in with the soba noodle mixture

- in the same pan (no point cleaning it!), heat a couple of tablespoons of oil over high heat. add your shrimp and when they've cooked for about 2 minutes and look partially opaque, add the garlic, stirring them around so that the garlic doesn't burn.

- top the soba noodle salad with the cooked shrimp and serve.

mental health day

i took a mental health/warding off sickness day yesterday. the dotytron is convinced he's coming down with strep throat and thus far, 2nd tri is kind of kicking my ass in the "wanting to sleep 10000000 hours a day/no motivation/feeling logey department" i've also been suppressing all these worries and concerns and not really dealing with my own ambivalence about parenthood, which is manifesting itself in a lot of stress and headaches and falling asleep at my desk at work.

the long and short of it is: i've never been the person who's KNOWN that they want to be a parent and to raise a child. in fact, i've actually veered in the EXACT OPPOSITE direction. i've campaigned actively against marriage and the nuclear family and then somehow found myself doing both in the space of a year. there still is a part of me that hasn't ruled out secretly divorcing the dotytron just so that i can keep my political praxis intact. anyway, everyone is always so stupid-happy for you when you tell them you're preggos that i feel like there isn't even a space for you to voice your own misgivings. like, it's a G-D effin' miracle and any word otherwise makes you seem like a really bad, selfish, person who spitting in the face of evolution and our own primordial genetic imperative.

the only thing(s) that made me start to waver on my position were seeing my niece and nephew and how freakin' amazing they are and how much i love them - that kind of made me feel like i might just want to buy into this whole reproductional ponzi scheme. and also knowing the dotytron and how good he is with the chillun's and how he's going to be a super-fantastico pater familias and how who am i to deny him that?!?

so i'm a hormonal, bad parent-to-be mess right now. talking to the roomie has definitely helped - she assures me that a lot of people feel the way i do - it's just not vocalized much and put into the public sphere much. she also feels guilty because she thinks that a lot of my concerns and hypochondria are stemming from her time living with us and how i know entirely too much about all the things that can go wrong with the whole process. i've been denied the opportunity for the whole ignorance is bliss thing. talking to dr. rei has helped too, although her encouragement is a little less founded in knowledge (ie. she doesn't know what a preemie is) and more in the blind faith that you want in a bestie.

ANYWAY, yesterday i couldn't face the idea of going into work and staring at my computer when all i wanted to do was hide under the covers and not face the world. so i stayed home, slept a tonne, did some small errands, and then made new drapes for the living room, in anticipation of the new couch being delivered on wednesday. this means that on wednesday night, while the dotytron was plugging away at his school stuff, i rearranged the living room, including moving our fully loaded ikea 4x4 expedit, by myself. i think it looks good. it'll look a little full, but still good.

last night we met up with uncle stevie and went to eat sushi at sushi delight. then we came home and caught up on "top chef masters" and passed out. the dotytron thinks he's coming down with strep throat.

today the plan is for me to hook up with our buddy B and go to this arab grocery store, arz, in scarborough, and then prep the dining room and maybe paint the one white wall. then we're heading over to tillers and J's in the kdubs for a bbq/potluck in honour of their pimpin' new bathroom (heated floors!) i made a macaroni salad, based on the dinosaur bbq recipe. i think i might also bring a spinach salad and i'm definitely also bringing a chocolate-hazelnut mousse cake. funzies! the dotytron has a lot of work and is battling sickness so he may or may not be joining me. his loss.

fin.

GAME DAY

i've got my game face on like whoa. i'm in it to win it. i'm...the contender? (i'm running out of sports metaphors).

today i'm participating in an indoor olympics. i'm in the biathlon, which involves navigating a course in GIANT snowshoes that date back to the height of the hudson's bay company - seriously, they're done up with gamy leather that left a residue on my hands and they're almost the same height as me; and stopping periodically to shoot at targets with nerf semi-automatic dart guns. i did a practice run yesterday - i almost threw up. the thing with GIANT snowshoes (the kind of snowshoes that people generally have hanging on the wall of their cottages as canadiana decor) is that you can't run in them. so on an indoor hard, carpeted surface, to get some speed, i was doing some kind of crazy kick-step/marching combination that basically set my gluts and thighs a-burning. i was sweating like a mofo. i wonder if my commitment to winning at all costs, even if it means debasing myself and showing up at the finish line a sweaty, barfy, muscle-cramped mess, makes me management material? i can only hope!

also, i'm on the team that was charged with reconfiguring our mission statement t-shirt and entering into a fashion show. based on my hunch that most people were going to do women's wear - we went formal men's wear. we turned the shirt into a formal vest, a cummerbund with the mission statement on it, a pocket square, a band around the top hat, a bow tie, and roses that our model is going to pass out to the judges. it's pretty awesome. we totally went the seamstress route. bespoke tailoring and all. our model is wearing a black suit and wearing white gloves and carrying a black cane. it's going to be pretty boss.

so, the dotytron has fridays set aside for his supply teaching day...which means that since january, when his schedule got shifted around and fridays became THE DAY, we've been on tenterhooks every thursday waiting for his cell phone to ring to see if he has work that day. it's AGONIZING. because they call anytime after around 7pm-10pm and then he has to get up at like, 5am in case they call at 6am to have him into work at a school that's an hour's drive away...he has to be able to get there by 8am or so. so, sometimes they don't call until super-late or super-early and it's super-annoying. we're always freaking out the night before when they DON'T call because we're trying to get a sense of what our financial situation is going to be next year.

last night they didn't call. somewhat predictably, i go into worry mode: "what are we going to do next year?" "what if we don't have any money?" which resulted in the both of us tossing and turning with stress. after a not-very-restful evening, the alarm went off at 5:30am and we hit snooze every ten minutes until he finally got a call at like, 6:45am. it was crazy. so he says to me, "look, you've got to relax about stressing about the supply list - i didn't get any sleep last night." to which i replied, "you?!!? i've got to compete today!" i was given a look of withering disdain and a "oh, shut the f**k up" in response! lol!

edit: home from work

so our team took second place in the biathlon. i didn't start to clean up on my shooting skills until the last two targets - each missed shot added 10 seconds to my time. so i got a silver medal. we were ROBBED on the t-shirt contest. ROBBED! they awarded it to someone who dressed up a guy in a wig and had some outlandishly bedazzled number. ours was so classy! seriously, it looked like mr. monopoly was up on stage - like he was in a totally different contest! lol! everyone said we should have won, but in the end, as has been true since grade school assemblies first began - the team that puts a guy in girls clothes will always win. people invariably find it funny. our workmanship was INSANE - the tailoring! the fit! it was savile row quality stuff...i only wish you, my faithful readers, could have seen it.

tonight we're taking lolls out for AYCE sushi in markham as a belated birthday/thank you for hosting us at the farm hang. i think dr. rei and hanbo are coming, too - haven't seen those guys in forevers (well, i see dr. rei at least 2 a week at lunch, but hanbo has been swallowed alive by mba school and we never see them after dark anymore)

in other news...i think i'm going to apply for york's masters of public policy administration and law. it's offered as a 2-year executive style masters, which means that i can continue to work full-time while completing it. i'm constantly concerned about the potential future obsolescence of my field and i sometimes feel stymied by the fact that in certain scenarios, librarians aren't permitted to do any in-depth analysis and have to hand over their work to research officers who can, because they've either got a public policy masters, and mba, or a phd in an area of subject specialty. i think this also positions me so that i can be a policy advisor or analyst if i chose to be. plus, i mean, another degree can't like, hurt me, right? kind of crazy, i know. also, the application form is due by march 1st. aieeeeeee!!! we'll see if i get accepted...they make it out like it's crazygonuts competitive. but...it's also york. ha!

finally, in other news: my sister is the best. she's such a faithful blog reader and commenter...and she'll save stuff up to tell me when we're face to face or the next time we talk in person. for instance, she wanted to remind me that my first exposure to helen mirren was actually when i was a wee pup and we were in hong kong. for some reason, "excalibur" was always on tv in hong kong when i was like, 9 or 10. helen mirren plays morgana.

for those who don't know, "excalibur" is like, the raciest depiction of arthurian legend in mainstream culture. seriously, seriously racy. like, it was my first exposure to incest (morgause and arthur totally do it) and it was also boob city - basically the movie (which apparently is heavily based on malory's "le morte d'arthur") is like boobs and greensleeves and j.w. waterhouse - all glittering swords and lush forests. peep that movie poster!!! 80s movie posters were THE BOMB.



edit: ZOMG, minutes after pushing "publish post" i watched the trailer on youtube and this movie is THE BOMB. seriously!!! check it out!!! if this doesn't have dr. rei's name all over it, i don't know WHAT does. lol!



fin.